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Arthur: Bruins, Blackhawks cracked mirror images of each other

The names of the 2010 Stanley Cup Chanpion Chicago Blackhawks, left, and the 2011 Champion Boston Bruins are etched next to each other on the Stanley Cup on display in the lobby of the United Center during a news conference for the Stanley Cup Final hockey series between the Blackhawks and the Bruins Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Chicago. The first game of the Stanley Cup final series is Wednesday in Chicago.

Photograph by: CHARLES REX ARBOGAST
, AP PHOTO

CHICAGO — It is not a clash of civilizations, if only because the Chicago Blackhawks led the league in goals allowed this season, which means they’re not exactly the ’84 Edmonton Oilers. It is a meeting of solitudes, since in this lockout-shortened season Chicago and the Boston Bruins did not play one another, and did not play anybody else who did, either. They have examined tape, but they won’t know what they are until they are on the ice in the Stanley Cup final, Wednesday night, with the anthem still ringing in their ears.

This is a Stanley Cup of cracked mirror images, and the burnishing effects of age. Two Original Six teams; two familiar ones, in more ways than that. Chicago won the Cup in 2010, and its core is similar but more mature. (“I feel like I’m more focused about hockey now,” said Patrick Kane on Tuesday.) Boston has 17 players left from the team that won the Cup in 2011. (“Mostly I was just glad that Vancouver didn’t win,” said Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews.) Both have had near-death experiences this spring — Chicago’s climb back from a 3-1 deficit against Detroit, and Boston’s miracle escape from over the lava pit the Maple Leafs had so unexpectedly built for them.

But while this isn’t pure offence versus defence, creation versus negation, the trapeze artists and the knife throwers versus the strongmen and the elephants — Boston has scored more goals per game than Chicago through three rounds — there is a theme to this series. Boston will try to snuff out Chicago’s shiniest players, and Chicago will try to crack Boston’s hard shell.

“I’m sure it’s going to be shutting down their skill forwards and taking away their speed,” says Bruins defenceman Dennis Seidenberg, who plays with the world-swallowing Zdeno Chara. “They always come with four guys on the rush, and we have to be aware of them coming on the rush.”

“We do have Toews and Kane,” says Blackhawks forward Dave Bolland, a holdover from 2010. “Whatever game they play, we can play. If it’s going to be a rough game, we can play a rough game. If it’s going to be a pretty game, we can play that pretty game.

“Maybe not be as fancy, maybe not do the pretty things out there. When you get down to it, it’s the ugly things that get you further in this game.”

It’s a sad truth to this game, where infractions have become accepted, and the beautiful goals — Toews to Kane in overtime to finish off the L.A. Kings in the conference final, Horton-to-Lucic-to-Krejci in Game 2 against Pittsburgh — are as rare as red diamonds. But Chicago believes it can play like that, if need be. Chicago do not consider themselves pretty boys out there.

“That’s part of our team maturity,” says Toews. “We’ve understood to win games, that’s what we have to do. Doesn’t matter how much skill you have — I mean, we got skilled players all over our lineup, guys that can make plays, beat players oneonone when they have speed.

“The more you try to make those fancy plays, the more it’s going to end up in your own net. Especially with a short season, throughout the playoffs, how defensive teams play, you can’t be out there trying things all the time. You got to be smart, work for your chances. We’ve understood that all year. I think that’s why we’ve been so consistent, everyone’s bought into that.”

“At the end of the day, guys want to win games. That’s the most important thing to us. We have a chance to do something special here. We’ve all set aside our personal agendas for that.”

Chicago was only fifth in the league in goals allowed in 2010, but it has learned to play the hard way; Boston, for its part, was born like that. With a spine of Chara, Patrice Bergeron and Tuukka Rask, and a team that is now trapping and turning the play around like an industrial machine — as Kane put it, “‘You see five guys in the picture all the time” — Boston has the chance to become the first team to win two Cups in quick succession in a decade.

There have been practice rounds. The Bruins faced Pittsburgh, the league’s highest-scoring team; the Blackhawks played L.A., a big team that hits and hits and had a goaltender who seemed unsolvable, for a time. It will all look vaguely familiar, even as it’s completely new.

“The closest anyone plays to these guys is Pittsburgh,” says Bruins pest Brad Marchand. “But Pittsburgh, still, were more keen on chipping pucks in and going after them.”

“Yeah, I mean, to give up two goals in four games against a team like Pittsburgh is crazy numbers,” says Kane. “At the same time you look a little bit deeper. [The Penguins] had a couple bad breaks. I think [Evgeni] Malkin one night had [21] attempted shots at net. So they were getting chances. Obviously Rask played great. They played a great defensive team game against them.

“I think you can look at other series, too, where Toronto had some success on them.”

Toronto did so by creating turnovers and gaining speed, and one of Pittsburgh’s problems — beyond Rask, who loomed like a great shadow as the series wore on — was they failed to generate much of either one. There will be many moving parts in this series — Chicago’s mobile, puck-carrying defence, which Pittsburgh lacked; Boston’s line of Milan Lucic, Nathan Horton and David Krejci, which has combined for 51 points in 16 games; Marian Hossa, Chara’s Slovakian neighbour who tries to tell on-ice jokes and stories to his friend to throw him off his stone-faced game.

Speed and size, strongmen and knife-throwers, acrobats and elephants, depth all over, and two teams who know how to avoid panic and summon desperation. Who will become the first two-time champion in this decade of parity? As Chicago’s Patrick Sharp put it, “Until we get on the ice and play them head-to-head, I guess we’ll never know.”

The names of the 2010 Stanley Cup Chanpion Chicago Blackhawks, left, and the 2011 Champion Boston Bruins are etched next to each other on the Stanley Cup on display in the lobby of the United Center during a news conference for the Stanley Cup Final hockey series between the Blackhawks and the Bruins Tuesday, June 11, 2013 in Chicago. The first game of the Stanley Cup final series is Wednesday in Chicago.

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